The present invention relates generally to control of apparatuses affecting parameters which characterize the operating environment in a control space, and more particularly to a polymorphic distributed control system for determining the operating environment as a function of any of a plurality of control space states.
Coordinated management of equipment for environmental control, lighting, security, entertainment, load/energy control, and scheduling of the foregoing, as well as scheduling the operation of appliances and devices used in homes, buildings and similar spaces has long been recognized as a desirable objective for saving energy, improving security and achieving other benefits. There has been substantial progress in the development of apparatus and systems for achieving these objectives in commercial buildings.
There are also a number of systems and approaches for achieving these objectives, generally known as home automation, for residential usage. However, such systems and approaches are found predominantly in very expensive homes. There has been little success or progress in creating a demand or market for such systems among average homeowners for use in typical homes. One of the reasons for this is that presently available systems are quite complex and expensive, requiring that the owner either have sufficient wealth and interest in such a system to engage a specialist to design, install and maintain it, or to have sufficient technical knowledge and interest to do so himself.
Systems as described above have normally been of a custom design for each owner. More recently there have been various attempts to design home automation systems with more universal applicability. However, these systems are generally based on design criteria that essentially require the installation of infrastructure (i.e., special wiring, sensors, controllers and actuators) at initial construction. This adds substantial cost to the basic house, which many consumers are unwilling to pay at that time. These approaches have the further disadvantage that a single installer is required to be familiar with all aspects of the system, including, for example, HVAC equipment, lighting controls, security equipment, voice and data communications equipment, entertainment systems, etc. Traditionally, these equipments and systems have been handled through separate channels by separate installers with little crossover between them. Finally, for reasons apparent from the foregoing discussion, these approaches and systems are not suitable for the retrofit market.
With the foregoing in mind, the applicants have devised a somewhat different approach to home automation, based on polymorphic system concepts analogous to those used for manipulating data in object oriented data processing systems. The approach involves partitioning of environmental control functions and appliances in a home into somewhat logical groups, each group under common control and capable of functioning in a stand-alone conventional manner, but with the ability to communicate with a state vector controller which provides coordinated control for user convenience and scheduling. Communications between individual operating environment controllers and the state vector controller occur over a relatively simple communications bus. Thus, the applicants have minimized or overcome many of the impediments to wide acceptance inherent in prior art approaches to home/building automation.
Although the applicants' invention is described in the context of a home automation system, it is pointed out that the invention is considerably broader in scope. In its broadest sense the invention is a polymorphic distributed control system useful in a wide range of applications, including but not limited to, manufacturing and industrial processes, and other control systems, in addition to control of the environment in homes and buildings. For that reason, it is intended that, as used herein, terms such as control space, state vector, operating environment, control function, etc., be taken to have broad meanings, not limited to a particular physical embodiment.